


You fill my lungs with sweetness, and you fill my head with you

by weishenme



Category: NU'EST
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Kissing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-27 10:10:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18736936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weishenme/pseuds/weishenme
Summary: The planet Earth spins at 1000 miles per hour. You could double, triple, quadruple that speed and it still wouldn't come close to the way Jonghyun's heart spins and flips when Minhyun leans over and kisses him by the light of the moon.Or, a collection of kisses.





	1. First

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kjhs (heiwajima)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heiwajima/gifts).



It’s nothing but a peck. A press of their lips. The slightest pressure before it’s gone, as quick as a blink. 

Jonghyun sits, befuddled, his mind clear of all thoughts. He feels more than sees Minhyun staring expectantly at him, but he doesn’t know what he’s waiting for. He’s not sure what to say. 

The moon casts a glow over the room, blue-gray and eerie. It makes things look unreal, like he took a wrong turn in a dream and ended up in this room with the rapidly fading memory of chapped lips meeting his. 

Minhyun is smiling, but his eyes have an unknown gleam to them that makes something anxious bloom in Jonghyun, spreading out from his chest into his trembling fingers. 

“Do it again” he hears himself say, cutting through the heavy air gracelessly. He continues, rushing to talk so that his words stop sounding so wooden, “Wait. We should have followed the script. It’s better, so I know, so I can get used to- I mean, so I know what to expect. I’ll go get it and we can- just, wait a bit.” 

He makes to leave, but Minhyun says, “Jonghyun”

And there’s something there, something in the way his name falls off Minhyun’s tongue that makes Jonghyun pause, suddenly hypersensitive to everything. The dust in the air, the way the moon makes Minhyun look ethereal and translucent, the traffic noises outside that remind him that the world is still turning, even if he feels like time has stopped. 

“Jonghyun” Minhyun says again. Sighs it, really, more of a soft exhale than fully formed syllables, but Jonghyun knows it’s his name, the way he knows that something in him broke earlier that day when Minhyun offered to practice with him because “kisses mean nothing between friends.”

Minhyun scoots closer and Jonghyun watches, wary, and wonders if this is what humans felt when they first touched fire and learned that something so beautiful and warm could hurt just as much. 

“Minhyun, I-” He starts and then he’s being kissed again. Or being kissed for the first time, properly kissed, because there’s intent now, something heady in the way their inexperienced lips search for each other again and again and again, until Jonghyun’s lungs are burning and his head is spinning and his skin is prickling with a confusing mixture of fear and want. He wants so much. 

This time it’s Jonghyun who pulls away, inhaling air in gulps, because he feels like he’ll never have enough of it to make up for the way every nerve ending and neuron is firing. 

He was wrong, he thinks. Minhyun isn’t fire. Minhyun is the light that shines from the moon, a sweet lullaby instead of a roaring flame that somehow hurts all the more. Jonghyun is a fool if he ever thought that he’d be satisfied with just stealing glances at him from afar. 

And then he remembers what Minhyun said that morning. He remembers the way Minhyun had laughed his stupid, beautiful laugh when he assured Jonghyun, stubborn, wary Jonghyun that practicing would be the only way to prepare for his first kiss scene, his first kiss at all. 

It’s not Minhyun’s fault. In the end, Jonghyun should have been braver and gone ahead with his kiss scene without confiding his worries to anyone, much less the person who makes his pulse race and his head hurt with with thousands of frantic thoughts when he touches Jonghyun’s wrist. 

He’s not even sure how they got here. Not here, as in their dorm room with the sky outside beginning to lighten in warning. Here, as in, here. With his heart aching and his eyes searching for any hint of emotion in Minhyun that would assure him that he’s not alone in this. Here, completely endeared by this lanky boy who hasn’t even lost all the baby fat from his face. Here, leaning in and brushing his lips against Minhyun’s, the touch so gentle he’s not sure if they even touched at all. 

Minhyun blinks at him and then he leans in, too, and Jonghyun waits for a kiss that doesn’t come because Minhyun is pressing his lips against Jonghyun’s cheek. 

He frowns and, feeling oddly unbalanced, does the same to Minhyun’s cheek, and then the other, and then his forehead, and then back to his mouth, but Minhyun’s smiling now and it’s hard to land a proper kiss. Jonghyun finds the barest hint of hope caught in the swell of Minhyun’s mouth, soft and pliant and waiting for him. It makes Jonghyun smile, too. 

They’re not even kissing now, just smiling, foolish and giddy and it feels better than any of the kisses Jonghyun has had this night. 

There’s unspoken explanations hanging above and a fragile understanding between them, but the rapidly approaching dawn isn’t going to wait for them to turn feeling into words. Even as the morning chill settles in around them, Jonghyun thinks he’s never felt warmer. Their last kiss, bashful this time in the light of day, still lingers in the corner of his mind. 

He can’t wait for the sun to set and the moon to rise.


	2. Painful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He watches Jonghyun—beautiful, gracious, smiling Jonghyun—bow and thank the audience when his rank is called. A protest tears its way up Minhyun's throat so fiercely that he nearly chokes to hold it down. Or maybe it's a sob he's holding back, or a scream. Maybe a hysterical laugh, because this can't be happening. It can't.

The interviews are over, the dressing rooms are being cleared, and Jonghyun is smiling, bright as ever, but with a resignation in his eyes that makes Minhyun’s hands shake with a tremor he’s not sure he can contain if Jonghyun were to turn and look at him. 

They’re free to go back to their dorm, but the four of them linger in their dressing room. The atmosphere is an odd mixture of optimism and melancholy, a combination makes something vile creep up Minhyun’s throat, but he swallows it down like he swallowed down the urge to scream earlier on stage.

Jonghyun is smiling and Minhyun wants to punch him in the face and then kiss away the smile that will undoubtedly return. It’s not Jonghyun’s job to smile, he thinks fiercely, even though he knows that it _is_ his job to smile and to present a strong, happy image, especially now when their team of five is losing a member, even if it’s temporary.

Everyone has whispered it to him between congratulations and pats on the back. They tell him it’s not forever and he knows it’s not forever. He can count. But as Jonghyun laughs at something Dongho and Minki are saying, Minhyun thinks it doesn’t matter how long or how short the separation is, in this moment, with his eyes red and breathing still ragged, he feels like something in him, between them, has broken. 

The night is a whirlwind of activity, but their managers agree to let them go out after a meeting to discuss how the company will proceed with the rest of the group. The separation already feels tangible, even if the others reassure Minhyun that nothing will change between them. He knows that it already did after his name was called and he waited, hands gripping the chair, for at least one other member to join him. 

Jonghyun is smiling again, but in the fluorescent light of the restroom they’re now in, he looks worn. Minhyun avoids eye contact and leans down to splash water on his face in an attempt to cool down his burning ears and soften the swelling of his eyes. Going out to eat won’t be as fun if he still looks like a puffy mess.

He wipes his face dry and focuses on the scratch of the restroom paper towels to avoid thinking about Jonghyun who’s standing near him and gazing at him in what Minhyun hopes is anything but pity. He doesn’t notice he’s being too rough until he feels Jonghyun’s hands on his, stopping him, firm but gentle. 

“Why are you smiling?” Minhyun asks. To his ears he sounds hurt, but he hopes Jonghyun can’t tell. 

Jonghyun hums and pries the napkins from Minhyun’s white-knuckle grip. The sudden emptiness disorients him. He stretches his hand a few times to relieve the tension.

“I’m happy,” Jonghyun finally says, dabbing at the wet hair plastered to Minhyun’s forehead, “For you, for the others, for us.”

“It should have been you.” Minhyun says, desperate for words that can convey just how damn guilty he feels.

“I’m glad it’s you.”

The finality in Jonghyun’s voice gives Minhyun pause, even if his first instinct is to argue against it. 

Jonghyun tosses the damp paper into a nearby trash bin and then steps back to Minhyun, steps closer than before. He traces a finger down Minhyun’s cheeks, softly, so light that it nearly tickles. “It’s always been you.”

Heat and anxiety spikes high in Minhyun. He feels sick. He feels faint. He feels like Jonghyun isn’t talking about winning or losing anymore. 

His hand grabs Jonghyun’s. He leans in, and when he speaks in a whisper it’s both a plea for assurance and a promise of words that don’t need to be said between them anymore because down to their core, they know. 

“It’s always been us.” 

The corners of Jonghyun’s mouth tremble, belying his smile. It catches Minhyun’s eye. He feels a sick satisfaction that he’s allowed a glimpse past tonight’s perfect leader image that Jonghyun worked so hard to maintain. 

They’re so close. Minhyun thinks he could count each and every one of Jonghyun’s eyelashes if he wanted to. A memory rises, unbidden and blurry with age, of the two of them on the floor of the dorm they used to share, sweaty hands and clumsy lips. 

He wonders if that Minhyun, younger and foolish, with an easy smile to hide his nerves, would be proud that the tentative feelings that started under the pretense of practice had bloomed into something all encompassing that threatened to drown them both. Just like he’d always hoped it might. 

When he kisses Jonghyun, he tastes salt, but this time the tears aren’t his. He closes his eyes to keep himself from breaking down, but the strangled sob that gets caught in Jonghyun’s throat hurts more than anything. 

He’s not sure who starts trembling first, but soon they’re holding onto each other, lips missing their mark because they can’t stop shaking. It’s messy, with tear slick faces, and gasping breaths. Minhyun drinks down every whimper from Jonghyun, every scrap of fear and guilt that escapes. He draws him even closer and pours as much warmth as he can into the embrace. Every kiss their first and last, their past and present. 

Jonghyun’s tired, Minhyun thinks when he draws back for air and takes in the other’s splotchy, red face, the exhausted slump of his shoulders, the tears in his eyes that cling to his lashes every time he blinks. The raw pain Minhyun sees is a far cry from the Jonghyun who always does his best to hide his emotions with a smile, like he did tonight, even when his rank was called, even when he congratulated a sobbing Minhyun after the show. 

They’re all tired. It’s been a long five years marked by more struggle than any of them expected when they’d signed their contracts all fresh faced and eager to work. Yes, they’re all tired. But Jonghyun, who worries endlessly deep inside, but never shows it on the outside, is the kind of tired that breaks Minhyun’s heart. 

They have to go back to the meeting room. The others will be wondering why they’re taking so long. Selfishly, Minhyun wants them to run away into the night. Maybe Jonghyun can tell he’s thinking so, because he reaches over and smooths Minhyun’s hair and then his own, tidying them up so they can go back. 

“Now you’re the puffy one.” is the first thing Minhyun says and then, “We match.” 

Jonghyun laughs, shaky and brittle, and runs a napkin under the faucet to make a cold compress that he presses onto his cheeks and then to Minhyun’s. 

There’s so much Minhyun hasn’t said. Maybe one day he’ll find the words for them, or write them into another song. There’ll be time, there has to be.

Jonghyun smiles at him and there’s sadness, but there’s also so much love and hope that it makes Minhyun want to start crying all over again. 

Instead, he smiles back.


End file.
